


Balance

by themantlingdark



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 19:27:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16898538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themantlingdark/pseuds/themantlingdark
Summary: I can't disable commenting, but please pretend that I have. And please don't repost or distribute my writing.





	Balance

“You betray me, and I will kill you,” Thor says, and Loki wonders what the last straw was.

Mother's death, his mind supplies, and he can't blame his brother - it hit Loki just as hard.

Harder.

Losing Odin's name was a slap in the face, but to lose her...

She was the only being in the realms who had never hurt him. Who never would.

Never lost faith in him.

And now never could.

In the end, his heart named her Mother, Father, Sister, and Home.

Today he has none of those things.

Odin fell in battle worlds away while Frigga fell here.

Loki wonders how far apart their deaths were. If they were simultaneous.

That would be something, Loki thinks. The best any pair could ever hope for: never to know their love had been lost.

Death without grieving.

He begs the Norns to grant him that gift when his time comes.

And now Loki has robbed himself of his last anchor.

For as much as he denied their brotherhood, and for every wrong he dealt Thor, this loss stings more than all the others.

Because he is entirely to blame.

His last link with happy days has been severed, by his own treacherous hand.

So Loki has nothing.

There's freedom in that, he supposes.

He took what he had for granted - believed his brother's heart was unbreakable.

I earned this, Loki thinks.

But breaks are for mending.

If you can still bleed, you can still heal.

Spring follows winter.

We can mend.

Loki will prove himself worthy. Win Thor's heart or die trying.

He thinks of courtly love.

Heimdall was Frigga's knight. He saw everything as it happened; she had already seen it all unfold.

Whenever something particularly troubling occurred, Heimdall would go to comfort the queen, though the wound was always thousands of years old by the time he was aware of it. He knew she could never speak of what she had seen, and he supposed that it was preferable that she have some outlet for her grief, however tardy.

Loki would often see them secreted in some garden. Heimdall's helm and armor would mark the path he took, a trail behind him, forgotten on the grass. He'd sit on a bench and she'd take his lap and slump over to sob into his neck. Loki would watch as hands that had taken whole hosts of lives smoothed his mother's hair or stroked her back.

And Loki has his first twinge of sympathy for Heimdall: he has lost his lord. The only one in all the realms who had ever really shared his burden.

Loki does everything Thor asks through the course of the war. And he has to deceive his brother a bit to do it, but it works, which is what counts.

Afterward, he wards himself and follows Thor to Midgard where he casts a spell to send Jane to sleep.

Thor sighs on the bed beside her and feels guilty for wanting things that would have delayed her much needed rest. She was so strong for so long. He had forgotten how fragile his mortal friends are.

So Thor leaves a note:

I can make you no promises, for my life is no longer my own. But the realms are forever in your debt. As am I.

And lays a kiss on her cheek.

On Thor's second day back in Asgard, a harried guard greets him outside his bedroom door.

“The prisoner you brought down yesterday wishes to see you, Allfather.”

“Very well,” Thor says, and sighs.

He did not return Loki to the cell. Loki vanished as soon as victory was in Thor's hands.

The thing in the cell is not Loki, and the thing that put it there was not Thor.

Thor hopes nothing untoward occurred in the course of Loki's latest illusion.

When Thor arrives at the cell he sees his brother's image standing inside it, looking exhausted and unkempt.

But that is how Loki wants to look, Thor reminds himself.

The seidr-Loki bows. Thor cocks an eyebrow at this.

“Privacy, please, milord” Loki says.

Thor nods and sends the sentries away.

Loki rests his right palm against the glass and leans his weight on it while the fingers of his left hand fiddle with the neck of his tunic.

“What is this?” Thor asks.

“Have I not been true?”

“You are not in that cell.”

“I cannot aid you from within these walls.”

“That's rather convenient,” Thor mutters.

“I swore on the head of that hammer that I would see your will done,” Loki says. “Did I fail?”

“No,” Thor answers softly, and it's the truth. “What will you do next?”

“I shall serve you, and I shall fade,” Loki says, smiling softly.

“Are you injured?” Thor asks, and he feels his face giving him away in spite of himself.

“Aye, milord.”

“Where are you, really? I'll fetch a healer.”

“They can do nothing for me.”

“What is it?” Thor asks.

“An old wound.”

Thor sprints through memories, trying to think of what it might be, and concludes it must be something Loki kept hidden, for broken arms do not come back to haunt you. And then Thor wonders if Laufey did something to Loki before he left him on the ice. Or if it's a spell. One of Malekith's.

“Seidr?” Thor says.

“In a way,” Loki murmurs.

“Speak plainly.”

“My heart. Remember?”

“What do you mean?” Thor whispers. “When?”

“It belongs to you, brother. But you've no use for it. So it withers. But it is no less yours.”

“Loki-”

“Even the ache of it brings pleasure. Is that not magic?”

“Stop it.”

“Would you have me lie to you?”

“What game is this?”

“The one I've bet my life on.”

“Loki,” Thor growls, and slams the end of his fist against the glass over Loki's palm. “What do you want from me?”

“Everything.”

Thor returns to his room to settle his thoughts, taking deep measured breaths and staring out the window at the blank blue sky.

Before he leaves, he looks into the mirror to make certain his face appears untroubled. He sees Loki over his shoulder, but when he turns, the room is empty.

Loki's eyes were as wide and lost as they appeared on his last real day in the cell.

Later that morning Thor walks past a pool and sees Loki's image striding along beside him on the rippling surface, casting sidelong glances. But the apparition disappears when Thor leaves the water's edge.

Thor surveys the damage done to Asgard and a slow breath shudders out of him as he wonders where to begin.

He opts to start at the outside and work his way in. The palace will be last, as most of its architecture was purely ornamental. He needs to mend wells and sewers so his people aren't sickened.

All of his friends and every able-bodied soldier come to his aid.

And still the work is slow-going. They have repaired the wells and plumbing in a handful of villages and cleared the roads on their way, but it feels like they've done nothing.

At midday Thor sends messengers to tell citizens to set clean bowls and pitchers out to catch rain in towns where the wells are still fouled and broken. At supper time he brings rain.

In the morning Thor looks in the mirror and sees Loki.

And Thor gapes.

Loki's face has wasted further overnight. His hair is wild. His eyelids sag in shadowed sockets.

When Thor walks past the pool he looks to its surface and sees his brother's reflection staggering along behind him.

At the edge of the realm Thor meets his friends. They stare at him with wide eyes.

The villages are whole again.

Thor offers no explanation.

He merely says that they should clear the roads as they make their way through the city.

The repairs to wells and sewers precede them, but there is still much work to be done. Many ruined buildings to mend. Too many. They work all day to move and sort debris so that it may be put to other purposes.

Thor looks for Loki in the mirror the following morning, but there is no one standing over his shoulder.

He leans closer and peers into the corners of his room and sees his brother asleep on the sofa.

When Thor leaves the palace he finds that the city has been set to rights overnight.

The king and his friends move on to the palace with their army. They work late into the evening. Sif, Hogun, Fandral, and Volstagg are feeling competitive, wanting to make progress before Loki's magic robs them of the chance.

Thor merely wants to grant the elusive god more rest and lighten his workload.

At the end of the night he rushes back to his room and checks the looking glass, but he is too late and finds himself alone.

In the morning Thor walks to the mirror.

Loki is on the sofa again.

Thor eyes the door uneasily.

When he finally steps out into the hall he sees that all the glass is back in windowpanes rather than strewn across the floors and lawns.

The ceiling is over his head, not under his boots.

Furnishings are functional.

Thor stops at the throne to look out on the realms.

Tony Stark and his machines have made great progress on Midgard. Thor would like to mend their world with magic, but he knows they would only seek to harness seidr, and once they had, they would likely do more harm than good with it. He can't take that chance.

He spends the rest of the day going about the business of being the Allfather.

When he retires to his room he finds his brother waiting on bended knee, no longer hiding in the mirror, but firmly on the floor in front of him.

“What is your wish, milord?”

Thor bolts the door behind him and leans back against it with a sigh. He undoes his hair and threads his fingers through it, trying to rub the tension from his head.

Loki looks awful. And he doesn't smell much better.

“Rest,” Thor says. “And care for yourself.”

“I'll not care for myself until you care for me again. I'll not waste the food and water of your realm on one you find unworthy.”

Thor stares at Loki and then huffs a tiny, broken laugh.

“You believed me,” Thor murmurs.

“Milord?”

“When I said I'd kill you,” Thor clarifies. “That I had no hope that you were still my brother.”

Loki looks confused.

“You believed me,” Thor says again, and Loki stares, and that's a yes if Thor's ever seen one. “You've lost your touch,” Thor teases, gently. “For such a gifted liar to miss a bluff... or perhaps I got better at it after watching you so long.”

“No,” Loki breathes. “I earned it. Thor, I lied to you. Wounded you. Murdered you.”

“I've wanted to kill you often enough,” Thor shrugs. “But most siblings do at some point, I think. And, anyway, we failed, which seems rather auspicious, does it not?”

Loki is still staring.

Thor smiles and walks over to drag his brother up off the floor.

“Milord?”

“If you like,” Thor chuckles, ushering Loki into the bath and opening the tap. “Call me Brother, Oaf, Tit, Imbecile, Ninny, Nuisance, or what you will. Thor seems to be a popular option if you're feeling fashionable.”

Thor sends his own clothing away with seidr and looks at Loki, but Loki is just standing there blinking, and Thor doesn't want to see his brother in those stained and tattered rags for one more second, so he speaks the spell to unravel Loki's garments. They pool around his slim ankles in a tangle of green thread.

“When did you learn to do that?” Loki asks.

“When you were away,” Thor answers.

Loki nods once and frowns.

The frown is for himself. Thor always took Loki's magic for granted, but Loki secretly liked it. The way Thor relied on him - needed him.

“You've passed ripe and gone to rotten,” Thor chides, splaying his fingers over the base of Loki's back and urging him on. “Get in the bath.”

Loki climbs into the tub and bends forward to dunk his head, then sags back against the edge, sloshing water over the side. Thor pushes Loki forward, slides in behind him, tugs him back against his chest, snakes both arms around his brother's too-thin middle and makes a marvelous cushion of himself.

Thor can hear faint snoring soon after.

He presses his lips and the tip of his nose to the back of his brother's head and lets his mind wander.

He thinks of courtly love.

How it's meant to remain a secret. How keeping it hidden is part of the charm. How concealing it becomes a game - an adventure.

Loki is owed long-overdue frivolity. Merriment. Thor is glad to give it to him.

Thor thinks of time and wonders how it is that he has so much of the stuff.

Thinks of his mortal friends who have so little.

He thinks of Midgard's other gods. How their devotees are always keen to attribute joy and success to their deities when they should be crediting each other for their hard work. How tragedies are swept under the rug or treated as tests. How desperately they want their gods to be good. To care.

But Thor knows they're two sides of the same coin. Those who would insist on one god must accept that it grants pestilence and death as much as it brings health and babies. That kindness and cruelty average out to indifference.

Asgard's pantheon is dwindling, Thor notes. The warrior, the watcher, the thunderer, and the trickster are all that remain.

He knows the Norns split the greatest burden between himself and his brother.

Thor arrived first and was given the lighter load.

Spent his time being burnished to shine more brightly.

So Loki was left with darkness, and the Norns had to bend and twist him to fit the part that he would play.

He will never be loved or trusted.

He will bring balance to the realms and receive no thanks for it.

He will burn, smash, and ruin. He will weave, birth, and build. And those who don't live long enough to see him through a full cycle will never understand. Indeed, few of the Aesir will comprehend it.

I'll know, Thor thinks, and he hopes that will be enough for his brother.

And I'll never be without him.

Thor has always known that much, though he has only recently come to understand it.

They will pull each other in opposing directions all their lives, and in doing so they will keep each other centered.

Loki's snores grow so loud that he startles himself awake.

Thor gives him a squeeze and sits them both upright, grabs a little bottle of soap, and begins lathering Loki's hair.

There has never been this much of it before. Thor likes it. He likes his own long, too. Odin's hair was always above his shoulders; Frigga's locks were always below. The brothers advertise their allegiance with braids and curls: the queen's men.

“It's not meant to be consummated... traditionally,” Loki murmurs.

“What?”

“Courtly love,” Loki clarifies.

“That's one interpretation,” Thor snorts. “Try telling that to Heimdall.”

Loki stiffens and turns his head back over his shoulder.

Thor's hands are poised in the air, covered in suds.

“What?" Loki breathes.

“Mother was his lord,” Thor answers, as if that explains everything.

“Yes,” Loki says, nodding slowly. “And he went to her to offer solace. I saw her sobbing into his neck all too often.”

“That wasn't all she was doing to his neck,” Thor says, grinning and scrubbing Loki's back with the froth that's falling from his hair.

“What?"

“I swear it was as if she wanted me to catch her,” Thor laughs. “And I suppose that makes sense. It's so satisfying to share a secret. Take the gamble. See if your confidant is able to the task.”

“Did Odin know?”

“Aye.”

“And he did nothing?” Loki asks, and Thor doubles over with laughter, forehead bouncing on Loki's back.

“If he'd said a word she'd have taken his other eye,” Thor wheezes.

Loki doesn't know what to say, so he turns around and lets Thor finish washing his hair. After that they shuffle apart slightly to twist and scrub their way through the rest of their bathing.

Thor sends a page to fetch fruit, eggs, and buttered bread, and then insists that Loki eat them.

Loki sulks a bit. He's meant to be wooing, not swooning. But he can barely keep his eyes open, and when he succeeds, he just sees Thor, which scatters his thoughts like birds.

Seducing a disarmingly handsome fertility god isn't something he could ever practice. His plans are only theories. Fantasies, really. Or dreams.

And then Thor is ushering him into bed and burying him in linen and fur and Loki falls asleep in the middle of Thor's mattress with his brother sprawled beside him.

Thor's favorite part of being king is that disaster is the only occurrence that can compel anyone to knock on his door.

No one will disturb him tomorrow.

Thor wakes just before dawn to the song of robins. Their voices have always roused him, and he has always loved them for it.

The birds that sing to the darkness, not the dawn, as though begging night to linger.

Thor thinks of them as allies and often brings soft rain to thank them, sending the worms up out of the earth and into their waiting mouths as he smiles at their hopping and tugging.

He stares at his brother's face, bathed in the starlight that filters in through the windows.

“I can hear you thinking,” Loki murmurs, and Thor huffs a soft laugh.

“What am I thinking?”

“Fool-thoughts,” Loki says.

“Lucky guess.”

“We'll destroy each other,” Loki whispers.

“No we won't.”

Loki smiles: as long as they disagree, all is well.

When Loki wakes again it is to sunlight and the song of cardinals – the bright red birds that can't bear to be still. They've always made him think of Thor.

Thor is on his back with his head tipped toward his brother, watching him, a quiet smile playing over his features.

When Loki looks closer he sees that Thor's breast rises and falls just a touch too swiftly. That his eyes are dark and his cheeks are faintly flushed.

Waiting for me to wake and blushing like a maiden in her marriage bed, Loki notes. Very nearly too good to be true... but Thor is only ever true.

Loki returns the smile and out of the corner of his eye he sees Thor's legs spreading for him.

But Loki sits up and swings his right leg over Thor's waist.

Thor looks puzzled.

“Later,” Loki promises, and leans down to taste Thor's lips.

Thor surges up to meet him and thrusts his fingers through Loki's hair, pushing it back to grant him a better view of his brother's face.

The gods kiss with their eyes open, as fearless here as anywhere.

Firm presses of lips melt into something soft and sliding. Claps, nips, drags, and sucks. Thor's mouth opens to let in Loki's tongue, and Thor can feel it tickling over the tips of his teeth. It makes his mouth feel bigger somehow.

And then Loki dips his hips to grant Thor's cock its first wet brush with the lips of his quim.

Thor moans and his breast fills with breath.

And this is what Loki wants.

To see Thor come undone. To be the one to take him apart.

Loki slides the slick folds of his cunt up and down along the underside of Thor's cock, feeling it press up against him. Loki likes the way the texture of the skin changes, from glass-smooth and bare to slightly pebbled and stippled with fur.

Thor's hands have wandered to Loki's flanks. He keeps them still and lets Loki's motions glide the soft skin across his palms.

Loki slows his hips and when he arrives at the head of Thor's cock, he doesn't descend along the slippery path he's made: he keeps moving forward, following the curve of the head until the dripping mouth of his cunny is kissing the slit in the tip of Thor's prick. And then he slowly sinks, his body swallowing Thor's length inch by inch until Thor is sheathed in warmth and softness.

They pant against each other's lips as Loki lets himself get used to the stretch.

Thor lets his hands get used to the curves of Loki's behind, squeezing, cupping, and kneading them. Loki can feel his anus and vulva move as Thor tugs at his skin. He hums.

And then Loki slides his arms under Thor's neck and starts swaying in a languorous rhythm.

Neither of them makes the noises the other is expecting.

Thor had anticipated silence from his secretive sibling; Loki thought that grunts and growls awaited him.

But they're both making breathy moans and sighs. And they're both pleasantly surprised.

They kiss again, as best they can while Loki is moving like this, and Thor can feel Loki's body clench around his cock with every press of their lips.

Slick slapping sounds reach their ears and the air smells of sex.

Thor's breath comes faster with every pass of Loki's hips.

Loki sees his brother's jaw flex.

“Nearly there,” Thor gasps. “If you don't want me to-”

“I do want you to,” Loki pants, and Thor takes Loki by the hips and holds them down tight against his own.

And Loki can feel it as Thor groans beneath him: the hot pulse of seed deep in his quim.

“All right?” Thor breathes, and Loki nods.

Thor's heavy arms close around Loki's back and the brothers lie there in a sweaty heap, smiling stupidly at the sheets.

Thor's cock is still hard in Loki's cunny. Loki has always wondered how his brother's body works. He isn't disappointed.

Loki's cock is still full between their bellies, and Thor could tell that Loki enjoyed what they did, but it wasn't enough to break the tension that's been building in him.

Thor strokes Loki's back, grips him by the waist and shoulders, and flips them over.

He moves his hips in short swift thrusts that have Loki's head rolling on the pillow. And Loki is closer to completion than he was before, but his pleasure has plateaued again.

Thor kisses his way down Loki's breast as his cock slides out of Loki's body.

Loki makes a soft moan of protest at the loss, but it warps into one of pleasure when Thor's lips wrap around his left nipple. Thor torments the little nub with his teeth and then heckles its twin until Loki's hips are lifting impatiently.

The kisses that Thor leaves in his wake as he makes his way down Loki's belly are lewd lingering things, wet and hungry. Loki smells delicious - tart and musky - and Thor wants to taste him. He licks a line along the base of Loki's cock and it bobs against his tongue.

The dew at the tip is sweet and sticky, wetter than saliva.

Thor mouths Loki's thigh while he thumbs the folds of Loki's cunt, softly tracing the outer lips with long passes up and down, slowly working his way inward as Loki whimpers and jerks. Loki is soaked in a mix of his own juices and Thor's seed. It flows out around Thor's fingers as he eases them into Loki's quim.

When Thor's mouth sinks onto Loki's cock, Loki wails.

Thor hums around his mouthful of flesh and starts bobbing his head as his fingers make a relentless come hither motion against the front wall of Loki's cunny.

And Thor can already tell that this will do the trick. Loki's legs are bracing themselves around him and his hips are arching off the bed. His breath is shortening and his fingers are white-knuckled around fistfuls of linen.

The noise Loki makes when he comes sounds like murder, and his long limbs fall away from Thor to lie trembling on the bed.

Thor presses a kiss to the base of Loki's cock and then sinks down onto his belly to stare at Loki's cunt.

The aftershocks of Loki's orgasm cause the muscles within him to clench, and, when they do, a stream of creamy fluid leaves Loki's body.

Thor leans in to catch it with his tongue, swallowing this hybrid of his brother and himself.

He scoots forward to press his face closer.

And all he can see is skin.

Shades of pink and peach and dun.

He traces the outer lips with the tip of his tongue, darting in to catch each pulse of liquid as it's wrung from Loki's cunny.

Loki makes wonderful little whimpers when Thor laps at the inner lips and sucks them into his mouth. His legs spread wider and Thor grins against Loki's quim and then glides his tongue deep inside it.

Loki curses his approval at the ceiling and gasps something about how Thor needs to do this for the rest of their lives.

In the afternoon Thor leaves to check on the realms and confer with his friends. He wears a high necked tunic to hide his lovebites.

Sif makes barely-veiled references to his brother, wanting to know what hand Loki had in the restoration of the realm, but Thor pretends to be as perplexed as she is.

Loki slips into his old room and grabs a small treasure from a sturdy box.

He did not cast wards on Thor's room last night.

Because Thor was right. It is more fun when someone knows your secret. The risk is delicious. And Loki likes to gamble.

Especially when he's likely to win.

He wears a tunic with a wide neck to show off his lovebites when he meets Heimdall on the Bifrost.

“Give me your hand, gatekeeper,” Loki says, and somehow it's a dare.

But Heimdall is unfazed and offers his left hand to the god of mischief.

“From my mother,” Loki murmurs, and slips Frigga's largest ring onto Heimdall's littlest finger.

The brothers kept Heimdall's secret; now he can keep theirs.

Balance, Loki thinks. It's all anyone's ever really after.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I can't disable commenting, but please pretend that I have. And please don't repost or distribute my writing.


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